The last of the three poems below was discovered in a mass grave of Jewish slave labourers murdered during a ‘deathmarch’ by a regular unit of the retreating Hungarian Army at the close of the Second World War. The poem, composed in careful, even handwriting and complete with printers’ instructions, was contained in a small notebook found on the body of its author, Miklós Radnóti (1909-1944). The poet had set out to record the chaos and brutality of the Holocaust in magnificent classical metre. His work in English translation is winning a robust international reputation. It has also made Radnóti a beloved literary figure in his native Hungary – although his statute has been repeatedly damaged and his poems publicly torched in an orgy of book burning by a neo-Nazi rabble.

28 Mar 2017jEarly Spring day just around dawn in beautiful Washington County. Have a lot to do that must be done before sundown. Now Radnoti and Fanni will slip in and out of my thoughts. Concentration broken. Probaby best to not read NER before daybreak.